The weeds grow taller while the unpaid utility bills are piling up for Chesterton’s former Pizza Hut outlet, which has been closed for a year.
Chesterton Town Engineer Mark O’Dell told the Chesterton Town Council on Monday that the town filed a lien against the property on March 24 because of a past due Chesterton utility bills that exceed $1,000.
O’Dell said the town is also contracting to have the lawn mowed around the building at 754 Indian Boundary Road.
Weeds — some more than 3 feet high — have sprouted up in the once tidy landscaped areas and through the cracks of the parking lot around the restaurant.
The listed owner of the building and former owner of the franchise is EYM Realty of Indiana, which is part of the EYM Group based in Irving Park, Texas.
The next possible step for the town of Chesterton — if there is no response from the owners — is to have the old Pizza Hut property declared a vacant and abandoned structure, O’Dell said.
A phone message seeking comment from EYM officials was not returned.
Chesterton is not alone as Pizza Hut locations in Northwest Indiana all closed around June 15, 2024. All of them were owned by EYM Realty of Indiana.
The Pizza Hut restaurants that closed included Portage, Valparaiso, Hobart, Winfield, Crown Point, Schererville, Griffith, Hammond, Merrillville, LaPorte, Michigan City, Lowell, Cedar Lake and Munster.
Before the sudden closure last June, Pizza Hut’s corporate ownership and the EYM Group were engaged in a dispute over how the restaurants were being operated.
The two parties had sued each other, claiming a breach of contract.
Pizza Hut’s corporate ownership had sought to terminate EYM Group from operating the restaurants, citing unpaid bills of $3 million for 2022 and an additional $2.6 million in 2023. The EYM Group last year filed for bankruptcy.
The Pizza Hut corporate franchise owned the Chesterton building when it was built in 2008 and was valued at $575,000, according to Porter County land records.
EYM Realty of Indiana purchased the Chesterton Pizza Hut franchise for $568,000 in 2016.
The building is now valued at $768,300, Porter County land records show.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.